


Network Support

by Mendeia



Category: Criminal Minds, Flashpoint, Leverage, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Age of the Geek, Computer nerds FTW, Garcia being flirty, Gen, Grumpy Eliot, Hacking, Humor, crazy crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 09:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9433571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: Crossover between Criminal Minds, Flashpoint, Leverage, and TMNT. When Garcia and Spike are competing in a law-enforcement-only hackathon and make the acquaintance of a mysterious interloper, they go on a deep dive to try to identify the only computer nerd able to out-hack them both. Meanwhile, Hardison is just trying to get some work done and Eliot is pissed off as usual.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here I am diving briefly into 3 new fandoms. Please forgive me for anything that isn't quite right. For context, this takes place in an intersection of 4 different shows – Flashpoint is somewhere in the neighborhood of Season 3, Criminal Minds is somewhere in Season 4, Leverage is at the end of the series, and TMNT (2003) is after "Turtles Forever." You don't have to worry about any spoilers for anything, I think, though if you don't know how the last episode of Leverage goes, you might be a little confused. And you literally don't need to know anything about the ninja turtles except that one of them is a certifiable computer/biochemical/mechanical engineering genius with access to alien technology.
> 
> As for how this came about, well...let's just say that these 4 series have 4 of the best hackers in fiction and I just had to put them together for some fun and chaos.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Okay, that's _it_! Winnie, next time Inspector Loudmouth needs SRU backup, tell him to call Team Three!"

Winnie looked up from her post and had to snap her jaw shut to keep from laughing out loud. "When you said Sam needed a shower, I didn't…" She glanced at the Sarge, who was barely suppressing his own grin.

"Yeah, he kinda took a swan dive into the grease storage tank. Shorted out the comm." Greg Parker winked at her. "Spike wouldn't let him ride in the van."

"Hey!" Spike popped up on Parker's other side, openly delighted. "That equipment is sensitive and it gets enough abuse as it is!"

Sam Braddock stomped past wearing boots and a rescue blanket and apparently not a lot else. Behind him, Jules carried a garbage bag presumably holding his clothing. Sam's hair was slicked down and globs of grease clung to him everywhere – those that didn't drip to the floor and trail after him. Ed Lane and Wordy were following with Sam's bag of gear between them, loudly discussing the smell of French fries.

"Next time, _you_ go find a perch on a catwalk that couldn't hold a cat!" Sam was glowering at everyone, but the thick stuff matting down his hair took away from any sternness he could have managed.

Jules snorted at him. "Check the transcript, Sam. I'm pretty sure I heard Ed telling you not to go up there in the first place."

"She's got a point." Wordy was grinning, too.

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should always listen to your commanding officer." Greg said it with fond amusement, not censure. "Speaking of which – debrief. Twenty minutes." He looked at Sam. "Make it thirty."

Sam said something under his breath and headed for the locker room, Jules and Wordy following.

"Okay, but don't forget that we gotta wrap this up early, Sarge," Spike said.

"Yeah, I remember. You got a thing."

Ed slapped Spike on the back. "Big date?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "Not even. But I got official PTO starting at 9pm and I am _not_ gonna be late!" He turned back to the central desk. "Winnie?"

"You're all set." She smiled at him. "Paperwork's even been approved."

"I signed off on it as a training exercise." Greg raised an eyebrow at Spike. "Don't make me have to explain it any other way, okay?"

"Yeah, boss. Thanks!" Spike headed to the cage to unload his own gear.

Ed waited until Greg turned, knowing he didn't need to say anything. Greg Parker was the best sargeant Ed had ever known – not just at leading Team One through every hot call and every crisis, but at reading and understanding people. Ed had seen Greg back subjects off homicidal rages and desperate sprees with nothing but compassion and patience. Everyone on Team One could talk someone down, and they all trained on connecting and de-escalation, but Greg was the undisputed master. On the other hand, everyone on the team was a practiced sniper and officer, but Ed was their tactical leader for a reason. Between them, if Greg couldn't talk down a subject peacefully, Ed would make sure TeamOne brought situation to a close one way or another.

So much of their relationship was unspoken, based on wordless trust and the highest loyalty. But it did help things that Greg could practically read Ed's mind nine times out of ten.

"It's some kind of international computer nerd thing," Greg answered Ed's unasked question. "A bunch of different hackers around the world trying to out-hack each other. Spike's going up against individuals from every agency in Canada and the US and the UK."

"So, like a tournament? Is there a prize?" Ed wanted to know.

Spike turned to yell from the cage. " _Besides_ the most epic of bragging rights _ever_? Whatever strategies the various participants come up with that prove successful will be documented and distributed to law enforcement as part of a university study."

"Crowd-sourcing problem solving." Ed nodded. "I like it." He looked back at Greg. "He's doing it here?"

"All participants must be operating from verified police or federal agencies to prevent the bad guys from using our tricks against us. Also, Spike didn't want to be yelling at his computer in front of his mom."

Ed started shifting out of his vest and joined Spike in the cage for the process of unloading. "So, can we watch? Lay some bets?"

Spike kept his head down but he was smiling. "It'll be pretty boring. Just a lot of typing."

"So just like every other day in the van with you then."

"You're only interested because you wanna see me get my butt kicked in cyberspace for once."

"No." Ed was still smiling, but he was sincere. "I wanna see you hold up the proud name of Team One of the Strategic Response Unit and teach those federal guys not to underestimate us."

Greg appeared at Spike's shoulder and nudged him with an elbow. "Unless us being there will distract you. Otherwise, yeah, we'll gladly cheer you on."

Spike swallowed. Team One spent their days fighting terrorists and chasing bombers and talking down desperate people with guns – and they coped by holding one another tightly so they could all stand together. They all had families outside the job, but they were also a family on the job. More than any other unit Spike had ever called his own, Team One was his family in ways he could not even describe. And it never, never stopped surprising him or mattering to him when they proved it once again.

Spike glanced up. Greg Parker's eyes were warm and steady. Of course the Sarge knew the sudden feelings of belonging that were swamping Spike's heart; they were right there in Greg's as well.

"Then we better get to that debrief so we're done in time, right boss?"

Greg smiled, pleased and proud, and Spike promised himself again to win this tournament for his team.

Except.

"Just...one thing."

"Let me guess." Ed leaned over. "You got some stiff competition?"

"It kinda depends."

"On?"

"Whether or not a certain FBI unit is in the field working a case right now."

-==OOO==-

"Is there a reason we can't do this in the briefing room?" David Rossi raised his hands at the various glares sent his way. "I'm just saying. It isn't that your office isn't...colorful."

"To win this competition, I need more than a tablet and a wifi connection." Garcia didn't even turn around as she continued routing the various monitors throughout her beloved, highly personalized room to make it easier for her team to follow along with the tournament.

"Don't we have some kind of super computer lab somewhere?" Reid asked. He was squashed into a chair shoved in a corner with his back against something that might be a server or maybe it was a crazy microwave – he didn't know and he didn't want to know. "It seems like that's the sort of thing we'd have around here. Wouldn't a full lab have even better resources than your private office?"

"No, don't ask that question." Aaron Hotchner was leaning against the door.

"Why not?"

"Because she'll explain it to you."

"Hey!" Garcia paused long enough to glare around the room. "If you want to make jokes, you can just go...elsewhere." She looked up at Hotch, whose expression was firm, and belatedly added, "Sir."

"Don't listen to them, mama." Morgan was perched right behind Garcia and he put his hands on her shoulders. "Just focus on being your goddess self."

"It's not like we _all_ have to be here." JJ was ensconced in the chair that put her in range of giving Garcia a hug and poking Reid in the side. "I mean, I already said I'd keep you company since Prentiss is off having dinner with some friend of her mom's."

"And I'm not gonna miss a minute of my baby girl's brilliance," Morgan added.

"Then what are _we_ doing here?" Rossi asked.

Reid pointed at JJ. "She promised to let me take Henry to get his first Vulcan Science Academy t-shirt if I behaved myself."

"Which didn't mean you had to be _here_ , Spence."

Reid shrugged. He had a book in his hands and he could easily read it in spite of the distraction his team provided, but that was something he'd resort to only if everyone else left. Until then, there was something nice about being crammed in with the rest of his BAU team without being in a van or a plane or chasing after someone both deranged and dangerous.

Hotch cleared his throat. "As for me, I told the Director I would personally supervise," he said.

Rossi looked up at him. "You and what expertise? She could be recoding nuclear missiles in here and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference." Before anyone could respond, he turned his most flattering smile on Garcia, already beginning to object. "Not that you would, of course, dear."

Hotch raised one shoulder. "Still, given her history, her participation was contingent upon my agreement that I would keep her strictly within the agreed-upon parameters of the tournament."

Garcia shifted her line of sight back over her shoulder, momentarily unsure. Hotch was not a demonstrative man in general and his boss-man voice could freeze water on a good day. But he gave her a nod and there was a slight pull at one side of his mouth that told her he was obeying the order but did not consider it necessary. That he still trusted her as he always had.

She let out a breath and returned her focus to finishing her preparations.

Rossi chuckled. "I really do see way too much of you people." But he settled down in his chair anyway and reached for the glass of scotch he had brought in from his office for just this reason.

Morgan smiled and sat back to give Garcia some room. "So. What rules will you be following at all times while you wipe the floor with every other computer nerd in the world?"

This time Garcia spun fully in her chair so she could face them all. When she spoke, though, it wasn't in the same manner she gave case briefings – direct though still warm and bubbly. This explanation poured out of her in an excited, cheerful rush.

"Okay. Today's hackathon is a legal, nonprofit exercise sponsored by several universities working together to pit Denial-of-Service attacks against potential real-time solutions. Everyone who registered will be assigned the role of a DoSer or a defender. The DoSers have to try to get into a set of servers on a specially-secured network and take them over. The defenders have to stop the attacks and lock the DoSers out. Defenders have specific servers they're holding to start, but the DoSers can go anywhere on the network they want and take down as many servers as they can get. Every hour, anyone not in control of at least one server gets kicked out of the game. Like musical chairs. But with typing."

"How do you win?" JJ asked.

"When there's only two people left, whoever controls the most servers at the end of the current hour wins."

"How long do you think this whole competition will go?" Rossi asked, eyeing his scotch.

Garcia smiled. "It depends. I know most of the players and can hack circles around some of them. There's a few who are as good as me, but, unsurprisingly, most of the people who would present a real challenge aren't exactly _cozy_ with law enforcement."

"So you're gonna dominate." Morgan grinned.

"Maybe." Garcia pointed to one screen up in a corner. "That's the list of players currently signed in. See the really stupid-looking guy?"

Reid blinked. "Who's that? And why did they put such an awful picture in their public profile?"

"That's someone I didn't give a choice about his userpic." Garcia spun back to the computer. Her polka-dotted kitty clock was ticking down the last minute before the tournament began. "And the only person with a real shot of taking me down."

-==OOO==-

"No, seriously, Spike, that is the _worst_ picture I've ever seen!"

"That's 'cause you haven't seen the one from two hours ago when you were swimming in bacon grease." Spike didn't even look up at him.

"You did _not_ get a picture of that!"

"Who are you talking to? Of course he did." Wordy leaned over. "Can you send it to me?"

"Sure thing, man."

"No way! Spike, you gotta delete that thing."

"Not a chance." Spike wasn't even raising his head now, typing so quickly the clack of his keyboard was more of a constant purr.

"Why exactly did you choose that picture, anyway?" Jules asked.

Spike sent off a command and swapped screens. "It's a bet I have with my friend from the FBI. Any time we both sign up for the same hackathon, we try to beat each other. Loser is stuck with a bad derpface userpic until the next round."

"And how many times have you actually beat this friend?" Ed asked. He was passing out the snacks Winnie had sent a rookie to get, making himself comfortable along one side of the long table that filled up the conference room Spike had reserved for the night. It wasn't as big or as nice as their proper debriefing room, but it was out of the way and had plenty of room to seat Team One comfortably – in spite of the sheer volume of computer equipment Spike had hauled in from somewhere the instant Greg had finished the debriefing. In less than an hour, Spike had turned a simple conference room into a mini version of the SRU truck.

"Current score is me – fifteen, PG – twenty-six."

"Ouch! So this could be a long night for you." Greg handed a cup of coffee from Timmy's over to Sam. Spike was on PTO for the night, but the rest of Team One was on call until midnight; they had to stay sharp and couldn't indulge in anything stronger than Timmy's darkest brew for now. But Greg had already stashed some beer in a corner in case Spike was still going once they were officially off the clock.

"Yeah, but I got a plan this time." Spike sent a scrolling code to one screen while he began furiously typing on the next. "Garcia is the best, but I know her tricks. She'll get so caught up in trying to DoS as many servers as she can, she might forget to watch her own back door."

"You're gonna go all hard tactical on the rear while you keep her distracted out front?"

Spike blinked at Jules. "That's one way to put it, sure."

"Can I just ask?" Greg raised a hand. "Do I need to be worried about you actually breaching the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit system and having to explain an international incident to the Deputy Chief?"

"I hope so!" Spike paused. "I mean, no boss. Definitely _no_ international incidents here."

"Good. Just checking."

Jules leaned over to Sam. "Fifty bucks says Sarge gets a call from someone in the FBI within two hours."

"You're on."

"I didn't hear that," Greg said. He deliberately looked at Ed. "You placing any bets?"

"Yeah. I'll bet a week of cage cleanup that Spike kicks this girl's ass."

"I'll take that bet." Wordy leaned back in his chair, smirking.

Spike shot him a rapid-fire glare. "You're betting against me? That's low, buddy."

"I'm betting according to the odds. If she's beat you two out of three, I can see which way the wind's blowing."

Ed snorted. "You just hate cleanup."

"Talk to me about cleaning up when you've got more kids, Eddie."

Ed put up his hands. "No thank you. One's enough trouble."

"Ha!" Spike raised both hands in victory before crouching over the keyboard once more.

"Did you get her?" Jules asked.

"Not Garcia, no. But I just launched a counter-attack that'll keep everybody fighting each other so they won't have time to come after my servers."

Sam leaned forward. "And now that you have fortified your position and distracted your enemies?"

Spike's grin went fierce. "Now I get revenge on Miss Penelope."

-==OOO==-

"Oh! You did _not_ just come at me with that lame script, you little twerp!" Garcia shifted another page of scrolling data onto a nearby screen and focused on the information before her. "You're gonna _pay_ for that, Scarlatti."

Morgan was staring in fascination at the various running tallies and the chat rooms and everything else spread across all of Garcia's monitors. "Somehow I never thought hacking would be so...intense. It's like...well, it's not exactly like sports, but it's got a certain somethin' going on."

"Well, whenever nerds rage, the world trembles." JJ grinned as she said it.

Reid nodded. "It's true! There's no one quicker to anger than wizards. Look it up."

"I'll take your word for it."

Rossi waved to Hotch, who bent near enough to hear him speak in an undertone. "You don't see it the same way when we're in the field, but she is _really_ good at this, isn't she?"

"She's the best," Hotch said. "We're lucky to have her. Any agency in the country would take her – if they could see past her history."

"How'd _you_ get her, anyway? Other than arresting her?"

Hotch glanced at Morgan, then raised an eyebrow.

Rossi smirked.

Morgan looked over his shoulder and whispered, "Did you just imply you recruited Garcia by…?"

From the computer, Garcia spoke up. "By tempting me with your fine black ass and your to-die-for biceps? You know it, chocolate thunder."

JJ winced. "Annnnnd the 'things I did not need to know' tally for the day goes up by one."

"Studies suggest that if you are sufficiently distracted right after an unpleasant experience, your brain may fail to correctly store the experience in its long-term memory and you may be more easily able to forget it entirely." Reid grinned at her. "I could distract you if you want."

"Coming from anyone but you, Spence, that would sound dirty."

"Do I even want to know what kind of distraction you have in mind?" Rossi asked.

"I've got a distraction for you!" Garcia's voice was tinged with gleeful triumph. "It's called kicking ass and taking names, PG style!"

-==OOO==-

"No! No no no no no…" Spike trailed off in a low groan.

The large projector was split into six screens and there were red warnings popping up over all of them. Only the tally-board in the bottom corner that tracked how many players were still involved in the tournament, a much smaller number than had been present an hour prior, remained free of the cascading alerts. Those few who were still in the game had stats next to their usernames showing which servers they controlled.

All at once, most of the other players vanished and the stats next to user 'BabyG1rl_BQ' skyrocketed. Onto one of the central screens a picture of a black kitten appeared with a caption that read, " _I am the Supreme Font of all Wisdom. Surrender unto your derpy fate, mortal!_ "

Ed burst out laughing. "Let me guess? Your friend?"

The kitten was replaced by a scrolling set of increasingly terrible pictures of Spike, all dated with the exact competition he had lost.

"I had no idea your nostrils could do that," Wordy told Spike.

"Shut up."

"Does this mean it's over?" Sam asked.

"Not...quite." Spike closed a number of windows to open a new screen where he began typing furiously. "She's locked me out of my attack angle, but that doesn't mean I can't hold onto my servers. She hasn't breached my defenses yet."

"Given the scoreboard, though, looks like everybody else is done for," Greg said.

"I told you she was good."

"Looks to me like she's the only one left," Jules said. "Everyone else's servers are being overrun, too. You're the only holdout."

"For now. But there's twenty minutes left and now she's going to be coming for me with everything she's got. _And_ I've got to get a few more servers myself since I'm outnumbered." Spike pulled up two new scripts and started them running. "But I'm not out of ideas yet."

Sam was still watching the scoreboard. "Hey. There's someone still in the game."

Spike actually paused and checked the list of users. "Huh. Must have grabbed one of the servers while Garcia's attack was running and got skipped." He blinked. "That's weird."

"What's weird?" Wordy asked.

"It's a name I don't know."

"Do you really know every single hacker in the world?" Ed was smiling as he said so, and it was equally likely that he was teasing Spike as that he honestly believed it was possible that their resident computer genius did know every single noteworthy peer in law enforcement.

"If they're any good and they're on our side, yeah. I guess it could be some new hotshot right out of training."

A moment later, fully half the servers under Garcia's control flipped to the new user.

"Or not." Spike grinned. "This guy is _good_."

"What kind of username is 'duz_machines84' anyway?" Jules asked.

"Hey. Spike's is 'DaddyCakes.' _Nothing_ is worse than that."

"Sam, I swear I'm going to put that grease picture of you up on every computer station in the PD. I could do it, too."

"I'm amending my original statement," Greg said quickly. "No international incidents _and_ no incidents that get us involved with internal investigations. 'Kay?"

Spike didn't have time to respond – half of his servers vanished from his screens and 'duz_machines84' showed the increase on their side.

A new icon flashed at the bottom corner. Muttering and swearing under his breath, Spike hit it.

"Okay, who's the new kid on the block? Because he is seriously messing with my mojo!" Penelope Garcia didn't even stop typing as she ranted into her webcam. Around her, several other figures were visible, all leaning close.

"Hiya, Pen. Kinda busy!"

"Is that DaddyCakes?"

Spike glanced up. "Derek Morgan, right?"

"Yeah? Have we met?"

"Not unless you spend a lot of time in Toronto. But I've heard stories."

"My fuzzy friends, meet Spike's fuzzy friends," Garcia said. "They're part of Toronto SRU's Team One."

"Good evening," Greg said. "Nice to meet you. I'm Sergeant Parker and these are Constables Ed Lane, Jules Callaghan, Sam Braddock, and Wordy. Our resident geek over there is Spike."

A very serious-faced man with dark hair in the back gestured to the faces trying to mug the camera at once without getting in the way of Garcia's flying fingers. "I'm Aaron Hotchner of the BAU. Special Agents Rossi, Jareau, Morgan, and Doctor Reid."

"Yeah, yeah, pleasantries," Spike muttered. "Pen! You seeing this?"

"I'm seeing. I'm just not believing. _Nobody_ can cold-gen a learning system that fast!"

"I think we've got a new player!"

"What's my time?" Garcia asked.

"Ten minutes, baby girl," Morgan told her.

Sam smirked and glanced at Jules.

Jules glared at him. "You call me that even _once_ , Braddock, and I will hit you back with every rookie prank you boys haven't even imagined yet."

"There is no way your pranks are as good as ours," Ed said, shaking his head.

"Two words for you. Pig. Intestines."

"She means it," Wordy said. "Girls are vicious."

Garcia grinned and paused typing long enough to hold up a hand. "Girl power, JJ!"

"You know it!" JJ gave her a high-five.

Spike pounded a fist on the table. "Garcia!"

"I know, but I can't lock him out!"

All of the servers suddenly appeared in duz_machines84's name except one each held by Garcia and Spike.

The icon at the bottom glowed again. Spike lunged to click on it, Garcia echoing his motion from her own screen. Another window popped up, totally blacked out except for the words 'Audio Only.'

"Well, it's been fun," came a new voice. Young, male, slightly nasal, and very cheerful. "But there's no way either of you is getting my servers in the next five minutes."

"Dude! How'd you _do_ that?" Spike asked.

The following explanation was fired so quickly even those used to listening to Spike or Garcia babble in tech-speak were lost. Spike and Garcia stared at their screens, both unblinking and wide-eyed.

Garcia recovered first. "Where'd you learn that? Seriously! Who are you with?"

"I'm not with anybody," came the response.

"Wait. I thought this was for law enforcement only." Hotchner pushed forward to lean closer to the screen. "What organization do you work for?"

"Uh. Heh. Sorry." The voice sounded chagrined and small, like a teenager caught stealing the car. "I'm not _technically_ part of any agency. I'm just a freelancer."

"How...what...How'd you get in?" Spike was somewhere between strangled and shouting. "Access was restricted!"

"Yeah, about that. Um, I'll send you guys some details on the security gaps I exploited, okay? Can you forward them onto the tournament officials? You probably don't want any cybercriminals learning all your tricks."

"Can I ask who you are?" Greg called, pitching his voice to friendly and non-threatening. "If you're good enough to beat Spike in ten minutes, we might be interested in working with you."

"Oh. Uh. You-you can call me Donnie, I guess. But I don't think...I don't think I can exactly work for you guys. Either of you."

"Why not?" Rossi asked. "You cheated your way into the tournament but you obviously have good intentions or you wouldn't have offered to help close the gaps you used. If you're worried about someone using this tournament to hurt other people, you wouldn't have warned us about it."

"Unless I was a _really_ bad guy playing some kind of game with you, right?" Donnie said. "No. I'm not. But I'm...there's a lot of reasons. It's complicated."

From the audio feed came a sudden crash and some vicious shouting.

"Are you safe where you are?" Ed asked, leaning forward and listening with all his concentration. "Do you need help?"

Donnie sighed. "Not like you mean. Don't worry about me. Spike, Penelope, it was nice to talk to you. I probably won't do it again. Keep up the good fight for me, okay?"

The connection ended just as the final seconds on the tournament trickled down.

"What just happened?" Sam asked, looking between his own team and the one on the screen.

"Well, it looks to me like your new friend wasn't interested in winning, either." Reid was pointing to a screen to the side of Garcia's webcam. "He split the servers exactly in half. You're tied. It's like he was never there."

"Oh, he was there, all right." Spike was meeting Garcia's eyes and they shared a blazing, fierce look. "You in?"

"Baby, _as if_ you can get there before I do." She tossed her head. "The usual?"

"Always."

"What are you two going to do?" Morgan asked.

"We're gonna find Donnie," Spike said.

" _I'm_ going to find him. _You're_ going to be stuck with another derpface pic," Garcia corrected him.

"We'll see about that!" Spike shot back.

Greg smiled at his hacker before he looked up at the screen. "Agent Hotchner, perhaps we should let them chase down their new friend in peace. But if your team's ever in Toronto or has dealings where you could use the help of the SRU…"

Hotch cracked a small smile. "I'll be sure to call. Likewise, of course. Thank you, Sergeant Parker."

"Call me Greg."

"You know?" Reid said, leaning on JJ and watching the pair of hackers type furiously. "I feel kinda bad for this Donnie guy. He's probably got a good reason not to want to identify himself."

"If that were true, he wouldn't have gotten involved at all," Ed said.

"And he wouldn't have talked to them," Rossi told him.

"He could just be lonely," Reid said. "It's hard enough being a nerd."

Spike paused and looked up at him. "You got that right."

"You _could_ leave him alone," Wordy said. "It's not like he can't find you if he does need you someday."

"Oh, no." Garcia shook her head. "Anybody _that_ good who's never run in any circle I track? No way. Either he's an ally or he's a potential problem, and either way I want to know about it."

"She's right," Spike said. "You don't want us to lose track of this guy and have to hunt him down later."

"I think you two just like competing with each other," Jules said.

Spike flushed slightly and Garcia grinned. "Smart cookie. You should come out here sometime for girls' night out and dish all the dirt on our Canadian brethren!"

Jules smiled. "Maybe I will."

"Either way, the tournament is over, so my work here is done," Hotch said. He nodded to the others across the video feed. "Good hunting."

"Keep the peace," Greg told him.

Spike and Garcia both ignored the people moving around them. But they did notice that neither team completely abandoned their resident tech geeks – Morgan and Reid both continued to sit with Garcia, pulling out a pack of cards, and Greg moved to where he could spread out some paperwork while staying beside Spike.

The pair of hackers exchanged a tiny smile before they mutually shut off their connection.

It was good to know that they both had such loyal teammates. Friends. Family.

They hoped Donnie could say the same.

And if he couldn't, if he wasn't valued and protected, they would find him. They would become his allies and offer to make him part of something bigger than himself, something out to protect the innocent and beat back the nightmares of the world. To give him what they had found for themselves and would never trade away, no matter what.

But first, they had to catch him.

-==OOO==-

In a dark computer lab regularly punctuated by the sounds of subway trains and yelling from behind the big double-doors, Donnie smiled to himself.

"I'd wish you both luck, but I seriously don't want you to find me."

His own fingers moved over his specially-designed keyboard, fit for his much larger, three-fingered hands.

"But it would be really nice to play a game of cat-and-mouse that _doesn't_ mean the lives of my family, or, you know, the whole entire world."

He ran a few checks of his network security and sat back to watch Spike Scarlatti and Penelope Garcia try to unravel the threads of his presence in the deepest part of the net.

"And if you do find me, well..." Don could only shake his head at how they might take running into a walking, talking, mutant turtle. With ninja skills.

"At least that will be one very interesting day."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because what we needed was even more cooks in the kitchen...or hackers in the servers. And Eliot yelling at Hardison. Of course, we can ALWAYS use more Eliot yelling at Hardison.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Hardison!"

Eliot stomped to the door that divided Leverage, Inc from the brewpub. He pushed it open just far enough to establish that the object of his fury was neither on the phone nor shut up in his corner office – if the door to Hardison's 'nerd-cave' was closed, it meant not to interrupt unless there were bullets flying or police on the premises. But when it was propped open, no matter how engrossed, Eliot knew he could interrupt without actually compromising the team's safety.

No matter how much he wanted to yell at Hardison, their safety always came first – and Eliot was all too aware of how much of that safety rested in the hands of their resident genius hacker.

"Hardison!" Eliot shoved into the 'nerd-cave' and crossed his arms. "What are you _doing_?"

Alec looked up from the three or four monitors all lined up together and blinked. "Uh...working?"

"No, that's what _I've_ been doing all afternoon! In _your_ stupid brewpub!"

Hardison sat back in his chair, frowning. "First of all, it's _our_ stupid brewpub and you know it. Unless you sold your share of it on the sly, which I know you didn't 'cause even you can't sneeze around here without me knowing about it."

Eliot's frown twitched a shade darker.

"Second of all, while you've been making hamburgers or whatever, I've been trying to purge all evidence of your little tea party last night from about fifteen different local, state, and federal agencies." He paused and smirked. "Unless you _want_ footage of you finding its way back to your old buddies in whichever spook agency you like best."

Eliot growled low in his chest. "I wouldn't have had to pull that number if you'd stuck to the damn plan!"

Hardison's smirk shrank. "Ain't my fault. Parker swapped it up at the last minute and you know it."

"Where is she, anyway?"

"Out thinkin'. Probably on the tallest building in Portland she ain't tried to jump off yet."

That softened Eliot's anger. It was easy to be mad at Hardison or Parker most of the time, but Parker was still learning how to come up with the plans that her team lived and could even die by, and she took mistakes pretty seriously. The time one of her plans had gotten Hardison a concussion and Eliot a nasty knife-wound to the leg, she had taken off for a week without telling them where she was going. Only Hardison's near-omniscient ability to track her with security footage, traffic cameras, and even satellites had kept the pair left behind from panicking and chasing her down.

Because they would find her. As they would find one another. Or Nate and Sophie.

No matter how bad a job went, every one of them would follow the others into hell, and any one of them would rip it apart until everyone came home together again.

Eliot let out a breath. "Should I be worried?"

Hardison shook his head. "I don't think so. She took her phone with her this time."

That was a good sign – that meant Parker wasn't upset enough to cut off contact while she got her head on straight.

"I'll talk to her when she gets back," Eliot said.

Hardison met his eyes and gave a short nod. It had bothered him at first, when he and Parker were something new and unsure, that in certain moods she was better able to get support from Eliot, the stone-cold hitter, than her boyfriend. But years and experience had taught Hardison that, first, Eliot was not cold at all, not when it came to the people who had penetrated his defenses and taken up residence in his heart, and second, that there were some things he just could not share with Parker no matter how much he loved her. There were inner demons and strengths and sharp edges inside Parker that were alien to Hardison, but familiar, even comfortable to Eliot.

In a similar way, Eliot and Parker had both been broken down in their lives, and the places they grew back stronger made them more like each other. And Hardison, for all he had known or experienced in his own life, didn't carry those analogous scars and shadows and shivery memories.

That had bothered Hardison, too, until he finally understood how alone they had been once – and how not alone they were when they had each other for support. No jealousy could stand against that. Not when the girl he loved and the brother he had always wanted had taught one another to smile.

Even if he did take at least some credit on that score.

So he just said, "Thanks," and knew Eliot heard the rest.

Eliot looked to the side. It was a tell as obvious as a six-year-old squirming. "So...how bad did I screw up the other day?"

Sometimes Hardison would have teased the hitter for being less than perfect, but that would mean he'd have two teammates out of sorts and he really only had the energy for one at a time. "Not too bad. If it hadn't been for the traffic cameras linked to the Fed building, I'd have been done before we left the scene."

"The Fed?"

"I'm thinking the NSA is getting a little extra crazy about recording everything. They were pulling the traffic cam feeds and analyzing it themselves rather than wait for the locals to provide anything in the event of a situation."

Eliot frowned again. "We were eight blocks away."

Something was beginning to flash on one of Hardison's monitors so he turned to focus on it. "Yeah, I know. Paranoid, like I said."

"Is that normal?"

"Is what normal?" There was something not right going on, something one of his defenses had caught, but it wasn't a normal hack like he'd expect from the usual suspects, NSA included.

"Hardison! Have you ever had to scrub traffic cam footage from the Fed before? Or any area that far from any government building?"

"I guess not. Why?" Whatever was pinging his system, it was either just someone stumbling into his nets or something really, really sophisticated that had figured out how to penetrate them…

"Because." Eliot was growling and leaning on the desk and Hardison was still typing and tracking the unusual activity without turning around. "If you've never had to watch out for this sort of thing until _now_ …"

Hardison stopped. "Uh oh."

"What's 'uh oh?'"

Hardison abandoned all pretense at relaxation and bent forward until his nose was inches from the nearest screen, typing so fast his fingers were blurs of motion.

"Uh, do me a favor."

"Don't you dare tell me you need me to hack for ya."

Hardison appreciated the attempt at levity, he _did_ , but he was busy. "In my go-bag you'll find a zippered pocket on the inside near where I store my laptop. There's a static-neutralizing bag in there wrapped around a phone and a battery. Grab them for me."

He had barely finished speaking when Eliot was back with the phone and battery, all frustration bottled up and transformed into precise, alert motion. As if he was expecting an attack at any moment.

Which he certainly was.

"Plug in the battery and turn the phone on. There's only one contact in there under 'D.' Send a text to that number and then turn it off and put it back the way you found it."

"What am I sending?"

"Tell him I got shadows and I'm calling in a marker."

Eliot typed quickly, his mind racing. Hardison never, ever asked anyone for help when it came to computers. The one time the Leverage team had been forced to employ Cha0s, the annoying hacker who was as smarmy as Hardison but without the redeeming _anything_ , Hardison had almost put his fist through a wall. If Hardison had known this 'D' person then, that's who he would have called for help instead.

So 'D' was a new ally. And a trusted one.

But the phone in a static bag, battery out, was a dead giveaway that 'D' was even more paranoid about being untraceable than Eliot was. That suggested someone dangerous or endangered in all the worst ways.

Eliot grabbed the nearest weapon to hand when he put the phone back, one of his training weights. It would slow him down slightly if it came to hand-to-hand against multiple opponents, but he could also break jaws with one swing if he had to.

And right now, he needed to know he could put people down fast and completely. Just in case.

"Hardison. Tell me what's happening."

"Hang on." Hardison lunged over and clicked on another computer. A dark screen came up, but after a beep Eliot could hear the tell-tale white noise of speakers picking up a high-quality microphone. "D?"

"I'm here." The voice was male, a little higher than Hardison's, with a neutral American accent. Eliot was not sure if he should be grateful or even more concerned that 'D' was so calm.

"I got two simultaneous hacks," Hardison said. "I'm backtracking now, but they are _good_."

"For you to call in a marker, they'd have to be." D went quiet for a moment. Then he sighed. "I know these styles. You're not gonna like it."

"Why?"

"Ever heard of the Black Queen?"

"Aw _hell_ no!"

"Yup. And the other one's in her league, too."

Eliot leaned over. "Okay. I need answers. Who the hell is the Black Queen and what's going on?"

"Hardison, I got this," D said. "You're Eliot Spencer, right?"

"How do you know my name?"

"Because Hardison told me."

"Dammit, Hardison!"

D snorted. "He didn't tell me to compromise your team. He told me because sometimes us tech geeks need someone to translate tactical grunt-speak for us."

Eliot scowled. "You've been tellin' Hardison how to deal with me? No offense but you need to stick to your day job, bud."

"I've been _trying_. It won't shock you to know that Alec doesn't listen to me any more than he does anyone else."

Eliot grunted acceptance. "So what's all this?"

"Looks to me like you guys got too close to some threads the Black Queen put out and now she's trying to figure out if Hardison is, well, me."

"You?" Hardison looked up. "You got BQ on your back?"

"One of you better tell me who this Black Queen is or _else_."

D laughed. "Oh, I know that grating threat. That one's serious. Okay. The Black Queen, aka Penelope Garcia, used to be a hacker like us before she went and joined the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. She's also been working with a guy named Spike out of Toronto who's part of the local SRU."

Eliot noted that D did not bother to explain the acronym, nor the function of the BAU to him. Which he didn't need to, of course – Eliot probably knew more about the BAU and the Canadian version of a SWAT team than some people who worked in those agencies. But he was interested that D assumed as much.

Clearly Hardison was talking to this D person a little too much.

"You got Garcia _and_ Spike on your tail?" Hardison asked. "Why?"

"Remember that little law enforcement tournament a while back?"

"Yeah. I was gonna crash it but we ended up having to fly to...uh...somewhere." He blinked up at Eliot before refocusing on his typing. "You _didn't_."

"I didn't mean to," D said, and Eliot heard the whine in it. "But the whole tournament was so poorly secured a ten-year-old with dial-up could have gotten in. So, yeah. They were…"

"Pissed?" Eliot guessed.

"Impressed."

"And now they're tracking you to try to turn you white hat like them?" Hardison asked.

"Something like that."

Eliot looked back at his hacker. "So why are they after you now?"

"Because one of the scripts I was running on that job is based on D's stuff. They probably twigged to it and think I'm him."

"Not for long," D said. "I've almost got them."

Hardison froze. "Uh…"

"Oh, shell." D gulped audibly. "Eliot? Get out of range of the webcam. _Now_."

Eliot knew when not to ask questions, particularly questions put in that stomach-sinking tone, and obeyed. He slotted himself into one of the few blind-spots in the room just as the larger monitor behind Hardison's head lit up with a split-screen of two unfamiliar people, both grinning.

One was a blonde woman, curvy and perfect wearing incredibly bright colors and apparently surrounded by fuzzy toys. The other was a man with dark, spiky hair and a sharp eye. But Eliot could read 'sniper' in the guy's slight callouses on his cheek, and 'bomb tech' in the way he held his head back even while typing.

"We gotcha this time, Donnie!" Garcia cheered.

"You slipped up hitting the network connected to the Fed building in Portland," Spike said.

A small window appeared at the bottom of the frame, still blacked out.

"Sorry. You're chasing the wrong rabbit this time." D, Donnie, was clearly smiling. "I took over the pathetic server setup at some restaurant nearby. So right now you're pretty much tearing apart a brewpub's billing files. Good job."

The pair of triumphant faces dimmed in unison. "There's no way," Spike said, shaking his head.

"You'd have to be on-site to get that much code online."

Hardison affected a wide-eyed stare and began muttering to himself.

"Who the hell's been downloading this much porn on my computer? Whoever it is, you're getting your ass _fired_! What the hell did you _do_?" He raised his voice and looked up as if yelling into the next room. "Hey, Luke! You been messin' with my computer?"

Eliot took the cue and cupped his hands around his mouth to make it sound like he was yelling back from farther away. He added his heaviest southern accent for good measure. "Naw, boss-man!"

"Luke, I swear, you are gonna be sorry if I ever catch you messin' around in here again!"

"Sorry, boss!"

Eliot was impressed to watch Hardison. On the one hand, the expression he was presenting to the webcam was every inch the harried, tech-incompetent owner of a small brewpub Donnie had set him up to be. But on silent fingers out of view, he continued humming along as he had before Garcia and Spike had hacked his webcam.

Eliot wondered which, between Hardison and Donnie, had been responsible for fooling the government hackers into thinking that what they were seeing was what was really on Hardison's system. But just as quickly, he decided he didn't want to know. It was easier to make himself believe that Hardison was just that good than to deal with the worry that an unknown party had that much access to and knowledge of Leverage Inc.

Either way, Eliot was going to launch an investigation into this 'Donnie' as soon as possible.

On the screen, Spike actually laughed. "Okay, I feel bad for that guy. Also – putting your code in porn? Not cool, man."

"Hey, the grown-up world can be a dangerous place," Garcia said, smug and saucy. "If he wants to play with the big boys, he'll have to learn sometime." She looked into her camera for a moment. "He's not bad. Nothing on my own Adonis, of course, but I could lose some hours tasting that smooth mocha for myself."

Before Hardison could blow his cover – and possibly explode from the sheer sexual energy being directed at him – Eliot tipped over the nearest thing he was sure wouldn't actually damage anything important. Unfortunately, it was the recycling bin for glass and empty bottles from the team's latest team-bonding-movie-night crashed everywhere.

"Luke!" Hardison yelled, pushing away from the computer. As soon as he was clear of the webcam, he shared a look with Eliot that was equal parts heat and terror and relief.

Eliot was just grateful Parker was out. Otherwise they would be blown already. Parker did _not_ take well to people flirting with Hardison.

"So," Donnie said. "How about we leave poor what's-his-name to his porn and go play in someone else's territory for a while?"

"Or," Spike said, "you could actually quit trying to avoid us and join up."

"It wouldn't have to be a formal thing," Garcia said. "Just...be a consultant. Help stop bad guys. Take care of the good guys."

"I can't." But Eliot could hear the longing warring with the guilt in Donnie's voice.

"Trust me," Garcia said. "I get it. You know I wasn't always with The Man. But...I'm protecting people here. Making the world a better place. Making a difference."

"And you wouldn't have to be alone," Spike said. He was still typing furiously, tongue poking out of one corner of his mouth at every pause. "Nobody knows you, dude. Which means you're on your own when you don't have to be. Haven't you ever wanted to be part of a team?"

Donnie chuckled. "Oh, trust me, I've got a team. Not like you guys, but the only one I need."

There was a crash and it took Eliot a half-second to realize it came from Donnie's end of the connection as neither Garcia nor Spike had moved.

"Speaking of which," Donnie said in a tone that suggested eye-rolling as well.

A shout could be faintly heard from D's end of the conversation. " _Michelangelo! You get back here right now, you pain in the shell!_ "

"I think that means I gotta run for now," Donnie said. "A pleasure as always, you guys. Better luck next time!"

The black screen between them winked out, but Eliot did not assume that meant Donnie was actually gone.

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," Garcia said after a moment.

"You think?"

"If we can't track him across the darknet, maybe we should be tracking him IRL."

"Huh." Spike blinked. "How many people are there named or nicknamed Michelangelo in proximity to someone with that thick of a Brooklyn accent?"

"Exactly." Garcia grinned. "And a team that close? If we find a Donnie, a Michelangelo, and an accent, we'll be halfway there."

"So, are we turning this into a partnership?" Spike asked. "Or is this still every derpface for himself?"

Garcia laughed. "Let's keep it as it is for now. But I have a feeling we're going to have to join forces if we're ever going to catch up with Donnie."

"May the best strapping Canadian man win, then!" Spike grinned and blew on his knuckles.

Garcia raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Can you find one for me? I'd love to get me a piece of real Canadian _bacon_."

" _Garcia_!"

"PG Ain't Just for Kids, signing off!" And her screen went dark, followed by Spike's a moment later.

There was a pause before Donnie's voice spoke from the original screen. "You're clear. They're out."

"So, I guess not all hackers are like you, huh Hardison?" Eliot asked as he followed his own hacker back to the desk. "I like that feisty lady."

"You would." Hardison swung into place at the keyboard and began running through his programs once more. "Good catch, D. I have no idea how you buried my stuff so fast, though. That kind of surface erasure would have taken me at least twenty minutes."

"You know I won't tell you," Donnie said.

"Why not?" Eliot asked anyway.

Hardison answered without looking up. "D never tells anyone all his tricks. No matter what."

"I can't. There are...people who could be in danger if you ever actually found me."

Eliot wished he had a face to go with the voice. "If you need protection…"

"Unfortunately, not the kind you can provide," Donnie said. "I can't afford to end up on any official lists, at least any more than I'm already on. That's why I can't work with Garcia and Spike, no matter how much they want me to."

"But he does work with me," Hardison said. Then he looked up. " _Just_ me, right, bruh?"

"Are you seriously asking me if our hacking relationship is exclusive?" Donnie laughed. "No, Alec, you're the _only_ one for me. I wouldn't accept untraceable wire transfers from anyone else."

"Scout's honor?"

"I was never a scout."

"Neither were you," Eliot told Hardison.

"Shut up."

"Eliot." Donnie waited until there was quiet. "I know your job is to protect your team. Trust me, I know what that's like. And I don't know if it will help but, I give you my word of honor that I and my...team – we're no threat to you. We're kinda like you, actually. We step in where the law can't go and we make things right."

"You've been working with Hardison how long and he doesn't know anything about you?" Eliot asked. "You took control of his computers and hacked circles around the FBI and the SRU. Give me one good reason I shouldn't think we are more compromised than ever right now."

"Hardison knows enough about me," Donnie said, soft and sincere. "He doesn't know my name other than Donnie, and he can't find me, but he knows how to reach me in an emergency. He helped me bail my team out of some trouble once – that's why I owed him a marker. But I can't let him know too much about how I do what I do. Today's the exact reason for that."

"I didn't think he was really serious," Hardison said then, looking up at Eliot. "I used just a piece of his bag of tricks today and they were on me in under a day." He turned back to the webcam. "You got some _serious_ fans out there, dude."

"I know."

There was some rustling and the sound of a not-very-effective covering of the microphone from Donnie's end.

"Don? Everything okay?" This voice was light and inquiring and did not have the Brooklyn accent that was so clear before. But Eliot could sense pure steel beneath it.

"Yeah. Just finishing up with some of my boring nerd stuff."

"Don't lie to me, Donatello. Are you working with that friend again? The one allied with the crazy thief and the fighter?"

Donnie – Donatello, Eliot mentally corrected himself, and then he hoped Garcia and Spike hadn't caught that full name before because if a Michelangelo was easy to find, a Michelangelo _and_ a Donatello would be vastly easier to track – answered with a hint of defensiveness.

"Yeah. But it's okay. Nobody can backtrace to us."

"Easy, bro. I wasn't doubting you. I was wondering if you had any more film of that fighter of theirs. What's his name again?"

"Eliot."

Eliot closed both hands into fists.

"Right. I wanted to analyze his style against multiple opponents if possible. It's a good base to design some updated training routines. And I wanted to see if he's corrected his balance on that double phoenix punch yet."

Hardison clapped a hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. Eliot was torn between being angry, again, and at appreciating the fine eye it would take to notice that he'd always been a little slow on the double phoenix – and now he knew why.

"I'll see if I can get Hardison to send something over."

"Thanks. I'll let you get back to work, then."

Whatever had been thrown over the microphone was removed. "Sorry about that."

"Not a problem." Hardison was still fighting not to snigger. "We all good, then?"

"Yep. And I'm sorry my stuff got you in trouble. I've already purged the Fed data and I'll get rid of it before it goes any farther, too."

"Thanks. And it's okay you got me into all this since you got me out of it again. Someday, when I'm retired, you're going to have to show me how you did that."

"Someday," Donnie said, and Eliot could hear a smirk, "you won't need me to show you."

"Thanks for the optimism."

"Any time. Take care of your team, Hardison."

"You too, D."

Eliot waited until Hardison had obviously shut down everything and turned to face him. "So?"

"I don't know, man." Hardison shook his head. "As far as I can tell, he's like a hermit except for what he does on the darkweb. The man could reprogram the entire world if he wanted to, but he never does. He's never, that I know of, gone after banks or corporations or even crime syndicates. The one time he needed my help was cracking some financials for some dude in New York City. But otherwise? He's probably the only guy who could really give me a run for my own money if he wanted to."

"Why doesn't he?"

"It's like he said." Hardison gave a half-smile and shrugged. "We're on the same team. You don't con your team. Right, Eliot?"

"Right."

Hardison sighed. "But you wanna know all about him now, don't you?"

"Yup."

"I'll try, but I ain't makin' no promises. Easier to find aliens in the Vatican than tear through D's defenses and find him."

Eliot quirked an expression it had taken Hardison more than a year to understand was not mocking, but was fond.

"Good thing you're the smartest guy I've ever known." Eliot gave a little wave, intending to head back to the kitchen to watch the staff – there was a new guy on the grill and Eliot wasn't sure yet if he was going to be able to maintain Eliot's high standards for perfectly grilled salmon.

Hardison called him back. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"What'd you come in here to yell at me about, anyway? Before everything went to pieces?"

Eliot's original fury came back to him with the speed of a lit match lighting up a puddle of gasoline. He returned to the desk, reached into his back pocket, and slammed down a piece of paper.

"Peanut-butter onion surprise? _That's_ your idea of a lunch special?"

Hardison blinked at him. "You don't like it?"

Eliot bent low and peered into his eyes. Hardison only flinched – most men _ran_ when Eliot Spencer was that angry and that close. But then, Eliot never intentionally hurt Hardison. Throwing him off a roof notwithstanding.

"Let me put it to you this way." Eliot's voice had gone soft and infinitely more dangerous. "You come up with an eatable lunch special for next week or I will _personally_ open up your gut and stuff you full of every onion in the pub. Got it?"

Hardison considered. Blinked. "Well...I guess we could do that goat cheese thing you've been talkin' about."

"Good answer."

Eliot rose and crumpled the menu with one hand, not even looking as he tossed it into the nearest paper recycling bin – marked in bright blue by Parker with accompanying green smiley faces. He spun to leave, but paused at the doorway.

"Hardison?"

"Yeah?"

"Good work."

Hardison grinned but didn't speak until Eliot had banged back through the main door into the pub. There was no sense testing the hitter's patience any more for one day.

He turned back to his computer, turned on his webcam again, and gave it a tiny fist-bump.

"Age of the geek, baby."

-==OOO==-

Hamato Donatello grinned and returned the fist-bump even though his friend couldn't see it without the visuals enabled on his side.

"Age of the geek," he repeated.

But he didn't continue his discussion with Hardison, sending a brief goodbye after just a little more cooperative coding. Afterwards, he ran a few diagnostics on his own tech, checking it against the day's events. His code had held up just fine, of course, and his hardware was far faster, smarter, and sleeker than anything Spike, Garcia, and Hardison put together could have imagined.

Having the use of tech from multiple alien worlds – plus everything he'd learned in a year-long trip a century into the future – was basically cheating, but since Don used the advantage only for good, he didn't mind it too much.

If any of those three ever got hold of the tech Don had at his disposal, though, then he would have a real competition on his hands.

He was looking forward to that.

But Donatello knew that the only likely chance any of his computer rivals would ever have of catching him was if he let them – deliberately. That was why he played his games with Garcia and Spike, why he let Hardison and Eliot hear a little more than they should over an open line. Someday Don might find himself in a position to need help, and he wouldn't get it unless there was a little more respect and trust built up on his behalf already. He'd never go so far as to actually reveal himself or his family to anyone, but having three brilliant, internet-breaking minds in his corner might someday mean the difference between life and death.

For that, for his team, for his family, Don would play any game required of him with a cheerful heart. He was just glad this one was also so much fun.

Realizing it was almost dinner time and his father would be annoyed if he was late, to say nothing of incurring Leo's wrath on a night he desperately wanted to get permission to go topside to find some new parts in the junkyard, Don set off into the lair to find out what exactly Mikey had done this time. If it warranted Raph yelling that loud, it was likely his brother had broken something Raph cherished.

Probably Don would get stuck fixing whatever-it-was. Again.

But Don smiled to himself. The life of a computer genius, whether FBI, SRU, or other-side-of-the-law hacker, was not usually glamorous. It was, however, always entertaining.


End file.
